The Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Direct on August 8th gave gaming fans a healthy amount of previously unannounced information about the upcoming mascot-fighter. (By the way, what is up with Nintendo’s sky-high production on these character reveal videos? Who wouldn’t watch entire episodes of that?)

There’s a ton to sift through, and fans will be happy to sift. The biggest headlines, along with notable updates, are as follows:

New play modes announced, including 3v3 and 5v5 “Squad Strike” Mode, new tournament mode with expanded options, character select screen changes, Final Smash bars, improved Stamina Mode, Training Mode updates, and so much more

Plus, there were announcements regarding a litany of new assist trophy characters from across the gaming universe, new items, and lots of other odds and ends which were all discussed during Nintendo’s presentation. Even as a bulleted list, that synopsis is long!

So after all that, you may be asking yourself, “Okay, so what’s left?”

Good question. Nintendo said more info is coming. And while there are only a finite amount of announcements feasibly left, there’s actually plenty of stuff you can glean from what we know already, as well as from what’s been done in the series’ past.

(Fair warning: literally anything is possible with future Smash announcements. Highly educated guesses could be torn to pieces with an out-of-the-blue press release or something totally unprecedented. I am not claiming to have front-line access to Smash Bros. development. That said, this is the realistic landscape at present.)

What The Confirmed Stages Might Tell Us

There's an otherworldly amount of stages in Smash Bros. Ultimate. As stated above, there are 103 before you even factor in the gameplay variations.

If you’re keeping track at home, and I know a select few of you are, these are the only stages from all other Smash Bros. games that apparently won’t appear in Ultimate:

Flat Zone

Flat Zone 2

Icicle Mountain

Jungle Hijinxs

Miiverse

Mushroom Kingdom Melee

Mushroomy Kingdom 1-2

Mute City Melee

Orbital Gate Assault

Pac-Maze

Pictochat

Planet Zebes

Poke Floats

Pyrosphere

Rainbow Road

Rumble Falls

Sector Z

Woolly World

Here's what the stage menu looks like so far:

Besides endless variety, what can we take away from this? Mainly that from a UI perspective, the scope for more stages is arguably limited.

Now, I know what some of you are thinking right now: “But Alan! They could just make the screen even smaller! Or create a paginated menu!”

Well, yes, they could. Heck, the stage select could’ve just been a mockup made for display purposes. Nintendo could, in fact, announce even more stages (that would’ve required considerable more development time than the team probably had), bringing the total up a teensy bit higher.

All that to say, it’s simply more likely that those things aren’t true. Given the geometric rigidness of the stage menu as presented in the direct (and on the new website), plus the frank logic of development resources, there’s simply a better chance that this is it, for now.

And if that holds true, that also means that unless a brand new character doesn’t also bring with them a corresponding multiplayer stage (unprecedented in Smash history), that means that any already-developed new fighter has to come from the stages already present in the game.

So Which New Characters Are Still To Come?

Say a fictional or non-fictional entity out loud. Go ahead. Literally whatever you just said has already been suggested by somebody for Smash Bros. But there are far better ways to venture an educated guess.

For instance, before Dark Samus’ announcement in the most recent direct, sharp-eyed fans noticed that Samus’ “Dark Samus” costume was no longer selectable in the E3 demo. The Dark Samus assist trophy was also thus far absent from the demo. Given Samus’ nemesis Ridley was front in centre during the game’s blowout reveal at E3, combined with the concurrent in-development status of a major Metroid title (Metroid Prime 4), Dark Samus became a logical, educated guess. And then she was announced.

Yes, there are other examples like this one.

Here’s the most logical one: the “graduation” of recent Mii Fighter costumes. Originally conceived as a sort of “runner-up” consolation prize to several of the characters who (purportedly) finished behind Bayonetta in the Smash ballot survey, many people understandably feel most of the newest characters previously being costumes can’t be coincidental:

So who is left from the costume list (who aren’t also assist trophies, for reasons I’ll explain soon)?

Akira (Virtua Fighter)

Black Knight (Fire Emblem)

Chocobo (Final Fantasy)

Geno (Super Mario RPG)

Gil (The Tower of Druaga)

Heihachi (Tekken)

Hunter (Monster Hunter)

Jacky Bryant (Virtua Fighter)

Lloyd Irving (Tales of Symphonia)

Tails (Sonic the Hedgehog)

Viridi (Kid Icarus)

Given the supplemental manner in which the Monster Hunter and fighting game characters from this list were used to regale other announcements at the time, the most reasonable names left are Lloyd Irving (Tales of Symphonia), Viridi (Kid Icarus), Geno (Super Mario RPG), and Tails (Sonic the Hedgehog 2).

Lloyd seems like a stretch and has no proper stage. Viridi? Uh, maybe? Geno is perpetually suggested but seems likely to have been announced by now if he was planned for Ultimate on release, as he technically does not have his own stage. (Though with his neverending rumoured status, who can know for sure?) That mostly leaves Tails.

Here’s some related trivia: Tails already exists in the background of the Sonic the Hedgehog stage. However, so did King Dedede in an original Kirby stage, and Toon Link is removed from The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks stage when you select him to fight, so anything is technically possible. Are you a Captain Toad fan? The above logic is about your only hope, seeing as Captain Toad appears in the background of the new New Donk City stage.

What other clues do we have? There are some assist trophies that might tell us something, as well as items. Let me unpack them.

Of previous Pokeball item characters and previous assist trophies, the only ones that have made the jump to being playable characters are Little Mac, Dark Samus and Charizard. Working backwards from there in order to show there’s a bit of a graduation precedent here, some characters (such as Knuckles and Zero) now have officially been “promoted” from Mii costume to assist trophy.

So which assist trophies from previous Smash games have not yet been shown?

Barbara (Daigasso! Band Brothers)

Isabelle (Animal Crossing)

Shadow the Hedgehog (Sonic)

Skull Kid (Zelda)

Tingle (Zelda)

Perhaps not coincidentally, Skull Kid, Barbara and Isabelle were also Mii costumes. To line things up even more, all of these characters already have stages in their universes.

Now, this list in and of itself doesn’t prove anything. In the June Nintendo Direct, series director Sakurai promised 50 plus assist trophies and more Pokeball items than have yet been shown. It’s reasonable that some of the above characters could exist in the remainder. Or they might not.

Here’s one more thing. While it’s worth stressing that Nintendo Life would never, ever report an unsubstantiated rumour as fact, that isn’t going to stop me from doing it.

Their totally baseless claims at the time? That Ridley and Simon Belmont were going to be announced in a staggered fashion, beginning at E3. They also then claimed that all characters from Smash Bros. 4 were going to be included on the roster, as well as the Ice Climbers. Later on, supposedly the very same poster stated that Snake would also return. What else was included among their strongly worded claims? This mystery person seemed absolutely certain Isabelle would be a playable character.

Verifying totally random posts online is a fool’s errand, and I’m not going to start now. But you’ve got to admit, even without these uncanny predictions, the case for Isabelle is strong, given the loose traces.

What About Single-Player?

Nintendo teased the above image, pixelation and all, regarding another mode yet to come. What’s going on here? Twitter user @noctulescent has probably the most convincing piece of evidence:

Read the thread to see how they did it, but the claim is that, at least for this image, the pixilated word that’s censored is “Spirits”. What the heck does “spirits” mean? Well, seeing that both Mario and Luigi have been strongly suggested to have flat out died in back-to-back Nintendo Directs, the most logical conclusion is that there could be some element of death (or playing from beyond the dead) in whatever the new Smash Bros. one-player mode is.

Also, why do I think the pixilated menu option has to do with single-player specifically? Well, every last single-player mode in Smash history has a green button. It’s that simple.

There is also the strong possibility that the single-player mode could be related to some sort of boss mode (similar to how players fought Ridley in recent Smash games), given how Monster Hunter dragon Rathalos was announced as both an assist trophy and a “boss”. Also, Castlevania antagonist Dracula also exuded some type of “boss-like” gameplay during the Castlevania stage reveal. There’s something here.

Final Predictions

There’s still a decent amount left to know about Smash Bros. before it launches. (Hello? We still know next to nothing about how it’ll play online!) Plenty more items will be showcased (come to me, home-run bat…), though I don’t predict we will see any more stages.

If there really are no more stages, I predict this means the most logical multi-million selling Nintendo title to have zero representation in Smash Bros., ARMS, will be relegated to eventual DLC. If, in fact, Smash Bros. Ultimate began development relatively concurrently to the system’s first wave of games, this only strengthens the likelihood that they may have needed more time (Splatoon did).

If you were to absolutely press me for which logical character announcements are to come between now and December, based on everything I’ve said above and using additional logic from past series decisions, I would guess this:

Isabelle

Tails

Dixie Kong

A generation 7 Pokémon

Animal Crossing desperately needs more representation given how popular the series is (including the mobile title), and Isabelle is the most teased candidate. Tails and Dixie Kong would be the most logical echo fighters, especially Dixie Kong, considering the strong tell by announcing King K. Rool, not to mention the success of Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze on Switch. In addition, not having a playable, new generation Pokémon representative would be unprecedented for the fighting series. And to reiterate, I don’t foresee any new third-party franchises represented before launch (though never say “never”). Tingle and Shadow I think are less likely than what I listed, but still totally possible as a new fighter and a shadow character, respectively.

What about Waluigi?!

Nintendo seemed completely caught off guard by the groundswell of Waluigi support during E3. You may forget this fact after all the online memes, but he was already shown in Ultimate as an assist trophy! It is completely possible Nintendo is acting dumb. But if they aren’t (and who knows, right?), taking into account the needed development time and presuming he wasn’t given top development priority, that does not bode well for Waluigi’s immediate inclusion into Smash, only a likely eventual one, ala Ridley. Therefore, I predict both Springman from ARMS and Waluigi to join the fight as DLC, in due time. It’s hard to imagine Arms won’t be represented in this game, whether it’s sooner or later.

Finally, when might we get some more official announcements? The game launches in early December, so I’d bet on only one (two at a push) more Directs between now and then. A drip campaign might be possible, but as we recently all experienced, Nintendo definitely loves their big, celebratory announcements.

What do you think? Is this all a bunch of horse hockey? Do you agree with Alan? Who and what do you want to see announced for Smash Bros.?

Special thanks to Smashboards contributor Kyle “Thinkaman’ Brockman for some key insights into writing this feature.

Alan is a feature writer who has contributed to Kotaku, Nintendo Life and other prominent gaming sites. He has a background in psychology research, the science of creativity, and over 20 years of Nintendo gaming behind him.

If you look at the Smash composite artwork, Mario, Link, Bowser and Inklings are oversized, implying they will be shrunk at a later stage to make way for gaps for extra characters. (Ice Climbers looks rather big too lol)

I also reckon we will see more bosses / nemeses. Ultimate seems to have a rather darker tone lol.

I hope it isn't too late for the Rainbow Road and Pac-Maze stages, as well as the controversial Poké Floats. I'm pretty sure Ashley was one of the paid DLC Mii costumes in the Wii U version yet she's still an Assist, so while I think there is definitely something to this trend, I don't think it's indicative of every character that's going to be added.

Barbara isn’t from WarioWare. Also, no mention of 3 completely random Rayman trophies in Smash 4? Of all the characters that haven’t been confirmed or deconfirmed, he must have been fairly high on that ballot.

After yesterday’s Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Direct, the naysayers who kept on saying that this game is a port look awfully stupid right now. cough @Cobalt *cough I can scarcely imagine what secrets this game still holds, but I’m excited nevertheless.

It would be cool if the Octopath Travler cast acted like a single character. Instead of 8 color schemes, they have 8 different character models - since they can all use abilities from various jobs, they can just do a costume transform when using a specific special attack that is synonymous with the job (since costumes change in-game based on job). But it’s all the same moveset.

This all seems super plausible! Hopefully the green button is more than just boss fights. I think the most likely 3rd party addition would be monster hunter Palico seeing as we HAVE seen a stage for MH.

Also the fact that you can KO so many Assist Trophies gives me hope they could be used as boss fights in a story or at least event mode.

@NF6429 It would really depend on if the Pokemon in the stage would be changed. It would be weird if the normal version only has Gen 1 and 2 and the Omega/Battlefield version has a Gen 6 Pokemon. I guess they could use Ditto but I still think it's a stretch.

@MH4 Part of me has a slight hope that more stages might be announced just because of how the stage layout in the menu isn't even-if they wee keeping it to this number, I assume that they'd probably want to center the bottom row rather than leave it as is. It's reaching, and I could be wrong, it's just a minor detail that feels a bit odd to me.

Still, no more stages doesn't equate to no more characters. I keep saying it, but timing is the only thing holding Spring Man back. And even if he doesn't initially get in, there's always a possibility of DLC, after the game launches.

@DaLoneSheep i think that instead of bringing back pokefloats, they would make a new version of the stage, with actual pokemon looking balloons and stuff happening in the background, with all the gen pokemon representation, maybe they would reveal it with the new pokemon

This is about as good as you can get for speculation. Trends in Smash representation and fighter selection aren't set in steel, but they're the best we've got to make educated guesses.

I'm still hoping on to my top 3, Spring Man, Dillon, and Chibi-Robo, even if the latter is a long shot. Spring Man is the face (along with Ribbon Girl) of Nintendo's premiere Switch fighting game, Dillon's got a trilogy of games to work with and is the most famous of the 3Ds eshop games, and Chibi-Robo has a cult following, and manages to keep coming back despite never getting huge sales. I'll admit, my pick for Chibi comes a bit out of sympathy, but I'd love to see him using his Zip-Lash moves to team up with the Belmont's

While trophies, stages, and music from series' getting into Smash are nothing to scoff at (just a little representation for hidden gems like Ever Oasis and Sushi Striker would be cool) fighters are inevitably the big attention-getter and draw, so while I'll be satisfied at minimum with everything else, I'm still going to hold onto hope that my picks make it in.

While I’m desperately wanting some ARMS representation (think of the echo fighter possibilities!), I kind of hope they take it easy with the DLC this time around. Hoping Spring Man gets announced soon!

BTW, I go by Andrew on Nintendo Everything. We were chatting and you mentioned a document about a plausible Spring Man move set, but couldn't get it through. Could I ask you to try sending it through here?

@g_ruz I keep wondering if they'd just make Springtron a Metal Spring Man, or if they'd bring in his super shockwave to stun opponents since, otherwise, he would still play about the same. It would definitely be interesting...

@MH4 I'm not the biggest Sonic guy, but I think most people are hoping Shadow will be Sonic's echo. I feel like classic Sonic is so similar design-wise, it just wouldn't be the most interesting choice, in my personal opinion. Like whoever it was said (I'm too lazy to tag them), it could maybe work as an alternate costume, though.

I think Porky would be cool, too. His final smash would be jumping into the Absolutely Safe Capsule while Giygas takes the backround and does damage to everyone. He could echo Wario and have his spider mech instead of a motorcycle.

@Andrew5678 I'd be a little disappointed if they didn't give Springtron his shockwave move, since it's pretty much the only thing that sets him apart from Spring Man. But I think making him heavier, slower, and more defensive than Spring Man would still work pretty well.

@g_ruz I'd be down with either if ARMS does get repped. Springtron is pretty much Spring Man, but a bit weaker, without a permacharge, but has an extended charge he gets from his super shockwave. Really, the only thing I'm worried about is balancing his shockwave for multiplayer fights-how big do you make it so that it's not annoying, but still affective for it's purpose? It doesn't seem like a huge deal, but I imagine it'd take some tweaking before they got it down.

@LasermasterA I'll address that. The Golden Sun franchise has had next to zero action taken on it in over 8 years. Camelot has largely been Nintendo's sports game developer. It's fairly rare that a character becomes all the way playable under those conditions, and if anything, plenty of other periphery Nintendo characters like Dillon and Chibi-Robo would have had greater chances of "making it". Not to mention Ultimate is just a massive bumper crop of "DUDES WITH SWORDS" as is.

Yeah, ANYTHING is possible, but color me shocked if they saved Isaac, a fairly obscure character, as one of the very last things announced.

I'm surprised how many people say they want Spring Man. I know he's kind of the face of ARMS, and the most likely to make the roster, but he and Ribbon Girl are the least interesting characters in the game to me. I would rather have literally anyone else, even Master Mummy.

All that said, I would still be happy to see Spring Man over no ARMS character at all. He would just be my last choice. Dr. Coyle and Max Brass would be my first and second personally.

They will surpise us with even more characters and last with DLC.i already knew it would be storymode and i think he did ot on purpose to keep us talking about it and it worked.seeing how dracula acted i know that was a part of the storymode. (cutscenes included)

@Pandaman
I'd agree to that logic if K. Rool had any action as well. Sure the Donkey Kong franchise has been active since a while, but K. Rool has literally made zero appearances since his Rare days, so even he has zero relevance for the current state of the DK franchise but here we are.

I don't think you quite know Golden Sun if you just put Isaac in "DUDES WITH SWORDS" club and call it a day. He is an adept with earth powers and potential to use the other three elements in the franchise. He could have a moveset entirely based on elemental moves and not even touch his sword. Golden Sun may have been inactive for a while, but it's still not obscure featuring in most fan polls. Similar to how K. Rool had a huge fan following, Isaac had a decent one as well. You called Isaac obscure but then referred to characters that are absolute nobodies in the fanbase like "Dillon" and 'Chibi Robo'

I am referring to polls such as the Reddit r/Smashbros Wishlist poll, Gamnesia's sample survey and Sourcegaming's poll where Isaac consistently ranked high and was only beaten by the likes of K. Rool, Banjo Kazooie and only 1-2 others. Oh and Dillon/Chibi Robo were nowhere on those polls btw.

I request you to kindly know your facts about Isaac's popularity and fan demand before making such uninformed comments. If the Ballot is being used to make decisions for playable characters, Isaac has a fair chance based on his popularity. Future relevancy does not matter if he's popular enough.

Thanks for this! I’m most concerned about whatever Single Player mode they’ve yet to announce, and I had only heard vague information about that shot in the Direct with the blurred-out mode, so this piece was very informative. Here’s hoping for a complete Single Player campaign that can be played in co-op, a la Subspace Emissary!

Nice, nice breakdown Alan, I applaud your insight! I agree with a lot of those possibilities, such as ARMS representation as Spring Man and Ribbon Girl seem to be shoe ins, even if it leads to DLC. Let's see if I can scrounge up a few cents to throw into the hat of what I think will happen. Let's see... I will go with a different angle and say that some 3rd party representations that only have one representative will gain a 2nd, if not 3rd, rep (not including Assist Trophies, mind). Currently we have:

See where I'm going here? For Pac-Man, I can see Blinky a possibility with the other with 3 ghosts (Pinky, Inky, and Clyde) as echoes having a strong case, and gives ol' Pac a bad guy rep of his own-- Or just as compelling a case of an ally in the form of Ms. Pac-Man being an echo could be made. For Sonic, I second the notion of it being Tails, or at this point since Hell's temp is official 0 degrees K with the appearances of Ridley and King K. Rool, I'd say Eggman has a strong case for appearing now, which, would also give Sonic a bad guy rep, or even Shadow as an echo (Do we know if we've seen footage of him as an Assist Trophy yet? Might be a hint). As for Cloud, we could go for the bad guy jugular and say that Sephiroth could make it, or the ally approach and add Chocobo, a Moogle, or even other series favorites of Tidus, Cecil, Squal, Terra, etc. As for Bayo, I guess it would just be Jeanne (unless you want to see Rodin in action, lol).

Hey, I’m not sure if anyone else noticed this, but when he was on the stage select screen at the top it said “normal”. So I’m thinking that maybe... I don’t know really, but it seems like an interesting thing to have when there are so many stages already

@MeloMan Thanks for the kind words, and yeah, I've seen the speculation that third parties will get echos. It's very possible. (I think Shadow or Tails are the most likely.) But I don't think it's the MOST possible outcome, simply given licensing is such a strenuous and road blocking type of thing. Sakurai is on the record saying that even getting individual Pokemon licensed is a massive pain and takes a ton of the team's resources. With that logic in mind, I think it's less likely that the final stretch months will be a pletheora of licensed characters, but again, this is defnitely not outside the realm of possibility.

@MeloMan The ghosts are already assist trophies (it says so on the Smash website).

Isn’t Tingle in the Great Bay stage? I could’ve sworn I saw him in a picture of the stage. As for more characters, I definitely think Geno and Isabelle. For possible future DLC, I could totally see an ARMS fighter and maybe, just maybe, an assist trophy or two becoming fighters. Lastly, even if he’s highly unlikely, Isaac would be a great addition.

Characters that are on nintys consoles are cool but adding someone from a game that's never been on a Ninty console shouldn't be allowed ahem! Cloud! Ahem! ... And like so many others I hope to hell they have a story mode like the amazing Brawl

This direct already shows that this game surpassed my expectations, and even the high hopes I had for it. I skipped out on the Wii U games, and played the 3DS version only a handful of times. (Smash just wasn't the same on a tiny screen and no couch multiplayer) so I'm essentially jumping into this game from Brawl. The amount of characters, the game modes, the QOL improvements, and the stage count are amazing.

At this point, the only character(s) I REALLY want now is another Starfox rep (Leon Powalski/Katt Monroe) or a fox costume with sunglasses, like his dad James. Everyone else is confirmed and/or not as big a deal for me. Lol

@Not_Soos if Castlevania gets an Echo (why not just an alt costume like Olimar/Alph) then the other third parties need them to maintain balance. So Ms Pac-Man, Shadow, Mega Man X, Naked Snake and Ken all seem highly plausible.

@Big_Ounce Well, Toon Link is on the Spirit Train stage yet he’s still playable (someone else just does his job for him if he’s busy fighting). I can imagine that one of Tingle’s brothers can hold the balloon for him if he’s really playable. But I doubt a character as hated as Tingle will be playable in any circumstance.

Couldn't agree more, @Lasermastera. It will be a sad day when characters like "Chibi Robo" end up as Smash Bros. fighters before more deserving characters (maybe I haven't played as many games as I think I have, but characters like Isaac from Golden Sun are far more known to me than "Chibi Robo", "Gin", "Geno", "Ashley". No slight on the people who like them, but who even are these characters, lmao).

This article severely lacks Isaac from Golden Sun, who was formerly an assist trophy in Brawl and removed in subsequent installments and has yet to be seen as a Smash fighter or assist trophy in Smash Bros Ultimate. It is noteworthy that the Mii "Warrior" Fighter featured in promotions for Smash 4 closely resembles Isaac:

It is also worth noting that Isaac consistently ranks in the top three most-requested Smash Bros fighters, including polls from external sites as well as Nintendo Life's own Smash Bros user polls:

Agreed @NEStalgia. It is also likely that Nintendo hide certain stages and in-game items relevant to as yet unrevealed fighters prior to capturing screenshots for marketing purposes like Nintendo Directs.

I don't think the stage select list is as fixed as the article implies. The tiles shown in those proportions would be effectively unusable in handheld mode, so I imagine the tiles scale/scroll/are paginated already. That's probably not a factor in additional stages existing or not.

@Euler True and I agree with you as well. I don’t think I've seen ANYONE ask for Tingle. Impa or Skull Kid would be better Zelda reps imo.By the way, your profile pic reminds that Ashley is sadly an assist trophy once again. But then again who knows for certain what other characters could still be announced.

Game Modes: Still would like to see the returns of a new Sub-Space Mode, Stage Builder, Smash Run, & Smash Tour. I understand the latter 2 weren't exactly liked that much, but it'd be more actual content, as opposed to more 'echo fighters'.

Characters: I would love to see an ARMS fighter (maybe Spring Man or Ribbon Girl), another Pokemon like Decidueye or Plusle & Minun (who were found in the data for Brawl, where are they Sakurai? >:/ ) Isaac from Golden Sun, or Krystal from Star Fox Adventures... but they'd probably find ways to turn Isaac into a Marth clone & Krystal into a Fox clone somehow. Would also love to see Tiki from FE, but FE is already over-represented, as much as I like it. They hit the nail on the head with King K. Rool though, so 2 thumbs up for that.

Stages: Aside from a few old Stages like Poke Floats, Mushroom Kingdom Melee, & Mushroomy Kingdom 1-2 being missing for some reason, I just want to see more new Stages in general. There's, what, like a total of 5-6 actual new Stages? That's just bad... Oh, and in the Stage Select screen in the article, you can blatantly see the Pictochat Stage, so I don't know why it says it's not included.

Misc.: A big thing is that the Character & Stage Select screens look awful - they look like they were put together by RNG, and make finding the Characters & Stages you want a needless hassle. Why aren't all the Mario Characters & Stages next to each other? It just makes selecting what you want so much easier when they are. Also, maybe they've said this, but what happened to custom movesets & equipment? How will amiibo used in Smash 4 work without said custom movesets & equipment in Ultimate? Is this, combined with the lack of a Mii Maker on Switch, the reason we can only use generic Mii Fighters?

And these: Isabelle Tails Dixie Kong A generation 7 PokémonI would like Tails as a character and Isabelle as an Echo.

I'm also wondering where the ARMS characters, stages, items etc... are at.I could also care less for Waluigi.If I could have any one plausible character to be put in Smash, I would love Birdo. NOT as an Echo of Yoshi, because they have nothing in common outside of hitting people with eggs, in different ways. Finally, a "dream" character, I would love Undyne from Undertale.

@Ogbert Ohhh, i got ya. I thought an echo fighter was just like a model/move clone. I left smash after melee and didn't stick around Wii long enough to remember much of brawl. Just now getting back to it with 4 on DS and Wii U. (Hence my excitement of this roster)

Many of those stages seem unlikely to appear. Some are redundant given the stages already confirmed (Flat Zone, Flat Zone 2, Mushroom Kingdom Melee), some are notoriously unpopular (Mushroomy Kingdom, Rumble Falls), and then there's the Miiverse stage.

I think that we can expect a lot of echo fighters left to be announced, given that they're relatively easy to develop. In particular, I'll bet Shadow appears as an echo of Sonic.

I don't know what the blurred-out mode is, but I hope it's something more interesting than a story mode. Or, at least, that it's a story mode worth playing. (Does no one remember how boring Melee's adventure mode was?) That said, I can think of fewer things less important to a multiplayer-centered fighting game than a single-player story mode.

I know the chances aren't super high but I'm still rooting for Chibi Robo to be added at some point in the future. I know he's not super popular but he would be such a unique fighter with an easy moveset to come up with. It's also one of Nintendo's few franchises that's still not represented, especially considering it has 5 games.

Isaac from Golden Sun would be nice too and while his Djinn attacks would set him apart from other swordfighters I feel like he wouldn't be as unique of a fighter as Chibi Robo.

Didn't know about the resemblance but one could take that as 'generic swordfighter pose' so I wouldn't rely on it heavily.

Although the fan popularity definitely matters, he's so well requested for Smash in every poll, and NL just ignores him nowadays, when funnily enough, he was 3rd place in their own poll that you linked!

Well anyways, I look forward to #IsaacInSmash and the Golden Sun to get another shining chance to rise again

Some characters I hope to be in Smash is Rabbid and Rabbid Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, Peach.....
Arms, have Ms Pacman be an alternate costume for Pacman
But excited to see what news next
And Ridley, King K tool are among the first to not bring a new stage with them.
And Geno is more plausible I think

@LasermasterA As someone who's always wanted K. Rool in and finally got what he wanted, I can support Isaac for Smash. I'm not even a fan of Golden Sun, but I know a lot of people that love it, and I think he's a much better character than most of the other votes out there. I'd even go as far to say that the franchise is actually fairly iconic of Nintendo during the early 2000s, especially as when the first game was released most Europeans weren't even aware of other RPGs like EarthBound or Fire Emblem.

For me, what they have to announce, they will announce it, and we just have to wait.

Of course, like many, I have my dreams / hopes that some character that I have in my wishlist will be a playable character, but I am not the one of the final decision, so only, to continue having the hope.

"Say a fictional or non-fictional entity out loud. Go ahead. Literally whatever you just said has already been suggested by somebody for Smash Bros."Uh... Shakespeare. (Looks up "Shakespeare for Smash")Nothin'.

@Markiemania95Well Shovel Knight is popular yeah, but personally I think he's fine as an assist trophy. He just isn't really that old, and personally I think the character is a bit overrated tbqh. The character that I think is "worthy" is Quote/Curly because Cave Story is both iconic and usually associated with either PC or Nintendo consoles. They also have a ton of moveset potential and costumes.

I'm really happy for the K. Rool fans, and I'm glad to see someone who hasn't been in games for quite a while made it into Smash because of fan demand in the Smash Ballot. I also see him as a good sign of Isaac, since Isaac and K. Rool were both high in demand in fan polls, K. Rool 1-2 ranks higher than Isaac, but still close nonetheless.

My current Smash dream is to see em side by side, 2 fan favourites who made it in when many thought they couldn't. Even if they may not be currently relevant, they have a legacy and a good history with Nintendo's past. And a fanbase to welcome them into Smash with open arms

Ok... if Wolverine seems out of place...Let's remember: Nintendo and Bandai/Namco have a good relationship.Namco. Pacman is on Smash Bros. We also have Virtua Fighter Kids costumes...Link was a playable character in Soul Calibur II for gamecube. Why not having Tekken characters in SSB? Just King and Paul are enough.

While I can't imagine there being too many more stages, I think its safe to say there are more than the 103 confirmed ones. Actually, this direct pretty much confirmed that there are more. There are 103 stages on the stage select screen, and yet the monster hunter stage that appears a few minutes later is not represented there. Just based on this direct, there are at least 104 stages in the game.

@Big_Ounce I’m asking for Tingle. My hopes aren’t high though, after all these years the only character I’ve outright been wanting that ended up actually coming true was King K Rool, and that literally just happened. Tingle is pretty unlikely to ever be playable...

@ShadJV Honestly, I figured K. Rool would make it. I had a hunch he would. Ridley however, I did NOT expect at ALL.Also, I’m pleased to meet a Tingle supporter! It’s nice to have people who want not-as-highly-requested-fighters.

@Big_Ounce yeah I’ve oft joked on here that there’s only like four of us Tingle fans (usually the others respond, always fun when the Tingle fan club finds each other and we know we’re not ENTIRELY alone in the world) but hey, I have a soft spot for quirky characters. I’d bet money on never having him playable though, as much as I want him. sigh but a man can dream.

But hey, looks like Geno still has small hope, otherwise just need Isaac, Banjo Kazooie, Sora... trails off with names he would love but likely won’t ever happen

Where is the whole no more stages thing coming from? Doesn't the six empty slots on the stage select seem off? Feel like they are new ones since there is only 4 new atm. Either just a new stage or tied to a newcomer. Lastly, I dont think Monster Hunter is a stage...its too weird they only show one player at a time there...

@Majora101 While I personally don't care much if Geno gets added or not, but he has a massive cult following and I've seen him requested more for Smash than Isaac. Sakrai definitely recognizes his popularity, hence the Mii costume from Smash 4. It definitely wouldn't be a sad day if he was added.

As for Chibi Robo, If you look at all of Nintendo's owned video game series you'll noticed that there aren't that many that haven't been represented in Smash, and even fewer if you narrow it down to games with distinct main characters that could be added to Smash. It basically boils down to The Legend of Starfy, Dillon's Rolling Western, Rhythm Heaven, Chibi Robo, and Golden Sun. While Chibi Robo may not have sold as well as Golden Sun, it does have some relevancy due to the recently released Zip Lash. Sakurai also tends to ignore popularity and add characters that he believes have interesting movesets, which I can see happening with Chibi Robo.

Either way I'm excited about K Rool, though I feel like his reveal would have been where they should have put in Dixie. It's a shame that Dixie isn't in yet, Smash is better than a lot of games for having female characters that aren't sexualized in the same way as other fighting games, and I think Dixie just makes so much sense. I'm probably bias because I loved the DKC games on SNES, and she was playable in more of them than DK was! I don't think she should be an echo fighter of Diddy or anyone else though. Her hair opens up so many opportunity for cool specials. Her third jump could be like the one from Tropical Freeze, and her down special could be similar to her hover from the SNES games.

I'd also absolutely love to see Issac in Smash, plus they could go the koopa kid route and have the other 7 characters all appear as alternate costumes (they can all technically have the same abilities if they equip different djinn.)

I also really hope that Mario x Rabbids was a hit soon enough for the Smash devs to want to include some of their characters, personally given that she was the only one in both the main game and the DK adventure, I'm betting on Rabbid Peach as a main character. (Though they could have her steal other characters weapons if they want to give her moves that match others, I mean she's Rabbid peach, you wouldn't put it past her.)

I think Tails as a fighter is dumb, he makes more sense as an assist trophy. Knucles made way more sense as a fighter but they made him an assist trophy. As far as Shadow, I don't know who you're talking about, the only sonic games that have ever come out were 1, 2, CD, 3, Knuckles and Mania.

@whitemaskedhero I agree, I also personally think he's fine being an Assist Trophy. When I said he's the only one worthy of Smash, I meant of being in the game at all (though in hindsight, perhaps that was a bit of an exaggeration. I think others like Commander Video are fine as collectable trophies, like in Smash 4).

@Cynas I appreciate your insight, as I didn't know much about Geno or what series he is from prior to fans asking for his inclusion in Smash in recent years. It's cool to see how many underrated or more obscure Nintendo series have such a cult following!

I feel like well get a final Smash Direct in November detailing the "spirits" mode, showing off some final returning stages, and a few new characters. Shadow the Hedgehog being absent from any footage so far as an assist leads me to believe he'll be Sonic's echo. Isabelle is a possibility for a Villager echo. With the anniversary of Street Fighter, I can also see Ken being Ryu's echo.

New non echo fighters are almost limitless obviously. I'd love to see an Arms rep., Rayman, a Rabbid , Dixie Kong and Issac.

@Big_Ounce Yeah, it was really disappointing to see Ashley deconfirmed yesterday. It just would have made so much sense to have her in this time. She somehow managed to stay relevant through 2015-2018 (through the Badge Arcade, 3DS themes, Mii costume, and Super Mario Maker cameo) and gain immense popularity in Japan despite her home series not having any real games since 2007. Also has an interesting backstory and great moveset potential. Putting one of Wario's friends in Smash also would have helped sell Warioware Gold, proving the series is still viable.

Sadly, in the timeline we're in, I can easily see Warioware Gold not selling well (as it's confined to a system in its twilight years). This could mean the series goes the way of F-Zero and Ashley is forever confined to obscurity. Then again, there's always DLC. Sakurai seems willing to break a few rules this time. If someone can be both an Assist Trophy and a boss, surely someone can be both an Assist Trophy and a DLC fighter. Though I'm scared they'll do something really stupid and promote a certain other Assist Trophy (not naming any names).

@jancotianno Smash Brothers Wii U is 15.6 GB with less than half the stages of the Switch one. Add in the multitude of songs, 800 at say 3Mb each is 2.4GB (unless they encode at low nitrate or use Midi, which would not be good aurally).

I'd say Shadow is more likely than Tails at this point, for multiple reasons. It seems more people want him in than tails, and he now has a good likelyhood due to Dark Samus' promotion from trophy to echo, and he's in an extremely similar situation.

Here's the other pattern to notice though...the kinds of characters being added. This has been noted by others on the internet as well as a rumor (although I seem to recall this particular rumor has a lot that was debunked), but a lot of the characters being added are actually villains. Ridley, K Rool, Dark Samus...given that prior Smash bros games have a very low number of villains in them, this could indicated a theme of the yet-to-be-revealed-but-now-very-likely story mode. To further add credence to this idea is the K Rool reveal trailer. I get it, they were trying to hint towards what was about to be revealed by showing all of these other Hero-villain rivalries, but you have to admit it was a bit unusual of a start to a trailer, and didn't really match things well. I would not put it past Sakurai or whoever designs these trailers for it to be a hint towards the story mode. We now have enough villain-hero combinations for it to make sense. Shadow the hedgehog would give us yet another one (yes I know he's more of an anti-hero than a true "villain", but you know pit-dark pit would receive the same treatment, so...).

I'm no Smash fan, but man this game is looking amazing. We all know they must be planning DLC for this. Just look at the Stage Select there's at least 6 empty slots on there for new stages, I suspect at least 6 additional fighters are planned too, to go with them. I wouldn't be surprised if they at some point said that some of the Assist fighters become actual playable fighters too. Just like all Nintendo's recent games they'll be some decent meaty DLC to come next year.

Funny story, I watched the direct VOD Simon reveal with my GF yesterday and she didn't know what Smash is. She saw Luigi die and then Simon whip characters from other games around and kept asking "this is so dumb! who came up with this!".And then Mr Sakurai appeared

She was pretty confused as her only exposure to Castlevania was through the Netflix show. I had to quickly explain to her that it is not the same Belmont.

Chibi-Robo was 10/10 Gamecube and a 9/10 DS game for me. And a 6/10 3DS game, however the 3DS game made Chibi-Robo more action-like instead of adventure-like, which helped making him more agile and was the final step in making him fitting for Smash!

Tingle was a 10/10 DS-game for me, much better than Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks. I never thought the chances for him being a Smash fighter would be high (since there are still favourites like Impa and True Midna), but he's coming from a perfect game in an almost perfect series and if Sakurai wants him added he should just go along. I always liked Tingle, especially when his game was better than the Zelda games.
BUT - he's a guy with balloons, and I thought Balloon Fighter would be very similar. And that one was rumoured to be a clone of Villager. However, so far we had no cross-franchise echos. There's no echo that's not from the same series as their original counterpart. So if Villager gets a clone, it's probably not Tingle or Balloon Fighter, but more likely Isabelle and 7 other AC characters / costumes. Guess it will be like the Koopalings.

I'm for Shadow (Sonic echo) as well. He has some of Sega's coolest music and stages after all. I think Tails is too different from Sonic to be an echo, just like Dixie is too different from Diddy. I'd love Dixie, but I don't think she'd make a good echo.

Great article, a big improvement over the dry patch we’ve had over the past few weeks. Some hopes/predictions:

Characters: With Ashley sadly confirmed as an Assist Trophy, there’s nobody I’m really rooting for right now. Most of these character suggestions honestly feel like scraping the bottom of the barrel, which is inevitable when the current roster is pushing 70 characters. That being said Mike Jones from Startropics would be an interesting choice. He’s from a first-party franchise that’s due for a Renaissance (much like Kid Icarus) and it’s still fresh in many minds thanks to the NES Classic Edition. If added he would be the first North America/Europe-only character, which may or may not hurt his chances. I’m also looking forward to the inevitable novelty character (Chibi Robo is a possibility here). In terms of predictions, I would buy Isabelle and sell Decidueye. Vergeben has batted 1.000 so far, and many of his predictions were far from obvious.

Stages: I think we’re getting a few more, but they’ll all be new ones. No more than 5 though (until dlc).

Modes: Now here’s where it gets interesting. The Mystery Mode is the piece of content most exciting for me, and likely the thing that persuades me to preorder. It’s probably some adventure or single-player mode, but I don’t think the Luigi death scene has anything to do with it (certainly not the Mario one). That’s reading too much into it.

@Euler I would love to see Startropics represented, time to pull that little dude out of retirement.

I haven't read all the comments, but I would love to see some sort of low poly/n64/retro graphics dealie thingamabob, similar to Cave Story/Monster Boy. Not sure how that would work, but whatever.

There's clearly another big announcement for whatever story mode/single player they've gone with. Personally, my only Switch-based disappointment in 2018 was the missed potential in Aces. I fell something serious for Golf Story; the sports/RPG thing is one of the biggest untapped wells in gaming, I think.

Doctor Robotnik for a new character? Final smash - A Death Egg Robot? I'm kidding... ...mostly.

You know what would be hilarious... If Nintendo keeps that portion of the menu in a low resolution until release and they'll wait patiently for the influx of uncontained happiness when people discover that it is (hopefully) a story mode.

"every last single-player mode in Smash history has a green button"Um, what? Quickly googling up, in Brawl the Solo mode button is orange, Subspace Emissary is white...ish and the green button is the Vault. In Melee there was no color buttons whatsoever in the menu. In SSB4 the green button is Shash Tour and Smash Run, sure, but that doesn't mean it has to stick around (I will give it that the rest of the colors do fit the SSB4 ones)

@Dysnomia I don't care if it's Spirits, Switchblade or Swiss cheese, they should have never made Subspace Emissary if they weren't planning on ever doing anything like that again. And that whole "it was spoiled on Youtube" is such BS. Everything is spoiled on YT these days, doesn't keep games from coming out.

One other thing the game also does need, but they'll probably never talk about, is individual save files for individual accounts. I never played SSB on Wii U b/c I only got to it a week after it released, by which point my kids had unlocked everybody and completed half of the challenges. Even though they had their own accounts on Wii U from me and they never played on my account for some stupid Nintendo Logic reason once a save file was on the Wii U all accounts were based off of that save file. I was just so disgusted with how that was handled I couldn't bring myself to play it.

Hopefully the Switch account system is a little more fire walled so each of our accounts can have their own pristine save file. I dont' want to play a story mode that's already been completed once by somebody else.

All I want now is Travis Touchdown. I know he's a bit of a cult rep, but I think there are just enough reasons.

No More Heroes is primarily a Nintendo series, and definitely no more obscure than Bayonetta was when she was released - and Travis Strikes Again is on the way.

Suda51 has told Samurai he wants him in, so the idea's definitely been pitched. There's a decent (maybe not major) demand for him, and Nintendo are getting more third parties on board.

If not, I can at least see him being an assist, like Shovel Knight.

My guess at the remaining reveals are:

Geno (fan service like Ridley and Kong K Rool, and Square-Enix are already involved) Isabelle as an Echo for VillagerTravis (less likely but hey this is my list) And maybe Waluigi. I know he's an assist but I think Nintendo know of the demand and I can honestly see them doing a surprise reveal.

@Mijzelffan - I thought someone might bring that up, but take that statement to mean more of how things are done in the modern Smash era, so to speak. It's true that Marth and Roy didn't have their "own" stage (they defaulted to the Hyrule stage), but this was largely due to the very unorthodox manner in which they were included into the game in the first place. Sakurai had to fight hard to put them in relatively last minute, to the point where they didn't even localize their voices into English. Roy almost wasn't even included overseas.

Since 2001, and largely before it too, the formula is as described, which is the most important thing when trying to make predictions.

So I've never been a big fan of the Waluigi for Smash memes or anything and I don't think he'd be the best fighter to join the game...but I do kind of wish they'd put him in as a playable character. It just feels like it'd be cool. I guess it'd be nice to have the four of them (Mario, Luigi, Waluigi and Wario) in the game together too though. I loved the direct and I'm super hyped for all the announcements they made. I know it's going to be the best Smash Bros. game ever. That's for sure

I just have one thing to say. Uh... how is Tails an Echo Fighter? Shadow I get, but Tails is different from Sonic only slightly less than Diddy Kong is from Donkey Kong. Yes, he has some similar moves, but unlike Sonic, he’s not known for his speed, but his flying ability.

This game is shaping up to be spectacular but one somewhat minor criticism I have is that some of the character movesets might need some updating like Luigi who uses the Green Missile attack even though it isn't based on any aspect on Luigi established outside of Smash Bros. Instead, they should probably implement his Stun Flashlight from Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon.

Another example is Ganondorf. While it is nice to see Ganondorf use his sword, I think they could have done a bit more like changing one of his specials to maybe the reflect attack from Ocarina of Time.

Here's a link to a video that is pretty in line with my opinions. It is a bit dated now as it is from the pre-E3 Smash Bros. Ultimate reveal period but it still offers some valid points. Caution: the humor in here can be seen as hit or miss. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MU33OaerX1s

Here are five predictions from me for new characters: Tails (Echo fighter), Geno, Heihachi, Hunter, and a Virtua Figher rep. The whole "they dont have a stage" argument isn't strong in my opinion. ROB doesn't have a stage yet he's in the game. Also, Geno is technically a Mario character (who just happens to be owned by Square-Enix. Remember Cloud?) so he would fit in with any of the Mario stages.

I'm hoping one of the reasons we didn't get Dixie yet is because she's not an echo fighter of Diddy (which would make sense since Diddy has a ton of unique Diddy moves) and that this direct they were showing off more echo fighters.

Also for people saying that there haven't been cross series echo fighters, Gannondorf was a Captain Falcon echo fighter.

I'm not sure why but I'm really hoping that Dixie makes it in, she's one of the biggest characters on the SNES that aren't in that Nintendo owns.

As far as Tails goes, I'd sooner see him over Shadow, but given the emphasis on villains and echo fighters, I suspect Shadow has a decent chance. I also think Sega hasn't 100% bought into Mania and would rather promote 3D sonic over 2D awesome Sonic. (Let's be honest, Up B should be Electric Shield, Forward B should be flame shield, down B should be bubble shield.) I think Tails makes more sense as an assist trophy.

Also I think it'd be awesome to see them do Issac the same way as Bowser Jr. and the Koopalings, have the first one be Issac then Mia, Garet, Felix etc. They could even be like "And now we're going to introduce 8 new characters!" And then just show off the whole cast from Golden Sun! (They'd have to have several character additions to go afterward so fans didn't get pissy.)